Earliest Memories of the Railways/Railroads

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Let’s take a trip back in time. Dust the cobwebs and think back. See what we get.

What are your memories of Railways ‘when you were a young’un’?

The one that is the earliest in my memory is ---------------

Being an orphan from three days old I lived with an Uncle and Aunt and two cousins until I was three years of age. Therefore it was at that time. (When I was four I lived with my Grandma and Granddad.)

If I was three, then it was the Summer of 1950. Aunt and Uncle decided to take us to Bridlington for the week.<

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My earliest railroad memories:

Seeing a passenger train stopped at the local depot in town, blocking traffic on the main street so we got a good long look at it. Timetables suggest that this must have been somewhere in the 1957-58 time frame. I have a distinct recollection of a deeply slanted nose on the E unit. The C&NW still had and was running the pre-WWII E3s that were the original diesel electric power on the 400, but it is more likely that what I saw was an E6. Either way I am pretty certain about the slanted nose.

The other even earlier memory is standing in our front yard and seeing a line of smoke moving from north to south. I could not see the tracks and it wasn’t until the C&NW started running the bi-level intercity trains that I could see the very tops of those passenger cars, particularly at night when the greenish lights (tinted windows) from the upper level could be seen moving. There is a slight chance that what I saw as a very young boy was one of the final steam locomotives on that division of the C&NW but by the early 1950s they had already started to remove steam service facilities on that main line in Wisconsin (steam hung on longer in the outer areas of the railroad). I might have been seeing an ALCO diesel. I might have been seeing a steam powered railroad crane being moved, since the CNW kept theirs into the early 1960s. I suspect I was 3 or 4 years old.

Dave Nelson

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When I was small, under 5, Dad went shopping and we got stopped by a switch engine servicing a local lumber yard. It was a CNW switch engine, probably an 0-6-0.

4

In my little town, there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment. My father would take us down to the UP mainline and we would watch the trains come through. Still lots of steam locos at that time.

5

I grew up in Phoenixville, PA. To get to my aunt’s house, we had to drive by the Phoenix Steel Corporation, and would have to stop as the slag train would cross the roadway. For me it was always great - I got to see trains.

Anytime we reached a closed crossing gate, we would count the cars.

6

I was rwo years old when my parents moved out to Long Island from New York City. At that point he started taking the Long Island Railroad to work. I remember the station. It was on a stub-end siding.

7

Fortunately, my earliest train memories are preserved on video produced from 8 mm home movies my parents shot. The trains are in the Panama Canal Zone and it’s 1960. There are scenes with me on a stuffed and mounted steam loco, along with some other shots along the line and at a station that abuts an Air Force airfield (I think this was Albrook AFB).

The video is here:

Train scenes and a ride start about 4 minutes in.

8

In the summer, our family would go swimming at a cove in northern New Jersey.

Near the picnic area, there was a row of trees and a train track. I used to love waiting for the train, which you could clearly see beyond the trees.

I’m guessing this may have been PRR/Penn Central or B&O track at the time. I wonder if the track is still there.

9

1955, I was seven years old, staying with my grandparents for a week in April at our bungalow colony in Highview, NY. We drove down the hill to the O&W train station to pick up a package, and I marveled at the huge F Diesel deeply growling in the fog and rain as it waited to pull its cars through the tunnel to points north. The station is now a marvelous remodeled private residence. -Rob

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My dad told me that when we took a family vacation to the Swiss Alps, I watched mesmorized by watching the electric cars move around the yard. He said I’d do nothing but observe. Want to keep me quiet? Allow me to enjoy trains!

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Can’t place an actual “first memory”. My parents moved to a house across the street from the Minneapolis Northfield & Southern’s “high line” about 7 years before I was born, so I saw trains virtually every day until I moved away many years later. I was born in 1958; until the railroad bought it first EMD switchers in 1962 the railroad was all Baldwin (on the high line, DRS 6-6-1500, VO-1000 / VO-660) except for one Fairbanks-Morse H-10-44 and one FM H-12-44. Cabooses were red wood cabooses that had the cupola removed, and a small sidewindow (I think they actually used all-weather windows designed for diesel locomotive cabs) to make it a sort-of bay-window car. Thursday mornings I went with my Mom to her ladies bowling league at Diamond Lake Lanes in Minneapolis, waiting in the childcare area while she bowled. The lanes were across the street from the end of the line for the branchline, and the crew tied up there and walked across the street to eat at the bowling alley. Although they used diesels, they still dressed like steam crews with denim jackets, overalls, gloves etc.

Weekdays they ran a second train, usually around 5 PM. I would wave at them, and when it got dark early I would flash the porch light at them and they would blow the whistle (they used Hancock Air Whistles, not airhorns). One evening a little before Xmas 1963, the train stopped in front of my house, and the trainmen came up to the house and gave me a railroad flashlight (the kind with a long red tube for signalling) so I could wave that at them at night.

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My oldest memories are too long gone to be remembered. Sadly, because of that, i do not know what my ‘real’ first memories are.

One memory i do have, and refuse to let go of is my very first ride. Its pretty much my oldest memory, that i DO remember.

It starts the night before. My parents had remarked that tomarow was gonna be a special day - we were gonna take a ‘train ride’ with a ‘steam engine’. My younger brother and I couldnt have been older than 4 and 6 respectively. Mom would chase while me, brother, and dad rode the train.

Our part of the trip was from fRednecksburg to Richmond. Behind none other than SR 4501. I remember the trip, and more over i remember Richmond station extra vividly.

Why, because at 6yrs old, not knowing a dad gum thing about trains yet, that breathing, belching, hissing, monster of a locomotive scared the bejeebers out of me. To make it really a nightmarish/stick with you forever type of thing, dear ole Dad wanted pictures. He snapped while I, lil ole I, had to stand next to that thing.

It is the only time in my life i have EVER been afraid of anything railroad. I can still feel the fear. I remember that all i wanted to do was get away from that thing! How ironic now, huh? Dad kept reassuring me it was ok… get closer - get closer.

All those noises. I didnt know she was just breathing just as i was. Standing pretty so a kid like me could get his photo taken. To make this more poiniant(sp), I have never seen those pictures to this day. No one knows what happened to them. I have never ever seen them. Except for our collective memories of the event, we cant prove it ever happened. (Parents!)

Im sure dear ole dad developed them, but i went through all that, and never got to see what could be technically called my first “Railfan” event. Im pretty sure i was hooked then, because it was all i could do to stay on dads leash duri

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PMR mentioned “real memories” I had my tonsils out at age 2 (quite young even by 1953 standards) I remember playing with Tonka toys in the pre and post of visit and for almost 20 years afterward, I remember being held down while the surgeon came at me with my mothers’ sewing pinking shears. That couldn’t have happened.

We were travelling to my grandparents in PA. We stopped at a crossing and I counted 104 freight cars pulled by double headed steam. The next time I saw a steam engine I was 20 years old.

I still have the time table from my first train trip to NYC. I will see if I can find it and scan it.

14

My dad took me to the Hampton Avenue overpass at the (then CNW) Butler yard in northwest Milwaukee near where I grew up. In those days you could stand on the overpass and watch action down in the yard looking north from Hampton.

Later it became a UP yard (4014 came thru the yard on its travel across country last year) and recently it has scaled back from what I’ve heard.

Anyway, I bet I was 6 or 7 maybe, late 70s. Also around this time, we took a trip to North Freedom, WI to view CNW 1385 on display.

After these experiences I was hooked and started modeling back then. We also had a neighbor who modeled HO for the CNW and that helped light the fire of interest.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northwest/news/butler/2019/02/05/butler-yard-reduces-workforce-and-closes-its-mechanical-shop/2771827002/

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Great stories here.

My earliest memory was going out west when I was 8 years old to watch the Freedom Train go by pulled by the GS-4.

I think we saw it four times.

We did not tour the train for a few more months when it finally came to Florida.

-Kevin

16

When I was about 3yrs old, my parents were driving somewhere near St Marys, KS. Along that stretch of highway, the road parallels the UP Kansas Division tracks. We had caught up to a steam locomotive and were matching it for a few minutes. There was fire, smoke, steam, and it had large wheels with these steel sticks (driver tie rods and piston rods) going up and down. I was fascinated by it. Later, we were living over a hardware store for a couple of months while my parents found a place to rent. From the roof top, I once saw what i now think was a 2-8-0 going back and forth (switching). The result is Ive been fascinated with trains ever since.

17

In the pre-interstate days of the mid '50s my family would drive from Louisville, KY to my grandparents homes in Joliet, IL. US 31 to Indianapolis then US 52 to Joliet. Seemed like there was a railroad crossing every few miles. Best were the NKP crossings that still had steam engines.

My first train ride was an elementary school field trip on the L&N from Louisville Union Station to Lebanon Junction and return.

Ray

18

Real railroad, the SOO Line, at my grandpa’s farm, spending the night, summer time, bedroom windows open, house about 2500 ft. (Google maps) from the main line between Fond du Lac WI., and Chicago. Now owned by the CN, and VERY active. I was about 12?

Model railroad: Coming home from the Christmas Eve service at church, to a Marx train set running around the Christmas tree, i was about 6.

Mike.

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My Grandmother lived two blocks away from the East River in Brooklyn and nearby was the docks and BEDT.I can remember seeing steam engine running in the street aroung 1960.Thats why I have always had a soft spot for Varney Docksiders

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I am glad some memories are coming back. [:)]

Seeing and traveling by trains was never a big thing when I was young. We used to travel by bus.

Having said that another ingrained memory was 1951? I was visiting family in Northumberland. For some reason we went to a little village called Shankhouse. Why I never knew. Anyway, I was outside a house ‘playing’. Across the road was open field. Tall, straw-like grass was the view.

Suddenly plumes of smoke rising from the grass could be seen. Slowly it made its way from left to right. A gap in the tall grass brught into view an elderly (what I now know) 0.6.0 steam engine pulling a number of (also) elderly coal wagons.

It stopped. Somebody got off the engine (fireman). He walked back along the line looking at the wagons. At one of them he grasped the underframe and lifted the errant wagon back on the track.

Boarding the engine again the train slowly left the scene.

The railway line closed in 1953.

David